Numeron's Will
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: Or: what if the Numeron Code was the will of the Architect..? or something of the sort. They fear for a moment it means they've put together an inescapable script of their future, that the miracle they hoped for doesn't exist after all... And they stand upon the stage of the world and stare at the glowing gold light of the Numeron Code and pray their sacrifices meant something.


**A/N:** Written for the:

Prompts in Steps Challenge, 4.09 – yearning  
Yugioh All Seasons non-flash version, #113 – injure  
The Halloween Trick or Treat Bag (Advent 2015), day 17 - jack-o-lantern: reveal a hidden identity (be that a "true self" in the sense of something metaphorical, or a friend who's a foe, or a human that turns out to be a vampire or anything like that.  
Diversity Writing Challenge, d7 - write a oneshot

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 **Numeron's Will**

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Shark lost. Yuuma and Astral had won and, finally, the Numbers were coming together as one.

There should have been far more witnesses than they were. The entirety of the Astral World witnessing their saviour. The Barian World witnessing the harbinger of their doom and the people on Earth, most of them not even aware of what they bore witness too – except they weren't there. There was just Yuuma and Kotori and the stage they'd fought on, and the dust light of Shark's presence slowly fading into space.

Then there were the other emperors, all gone as well: light that faded away when the wind came as though they'd only ever been made of dust. And Kaito, on the moon. And all the people who'd picked up those fake numbers and merged into the world, and those who'd fallen trying to defend the last remnants of it, and those who still lived on, watching the worlds frozen in time but unable to see this: this place where it all came together, where it began and end.

It was only Yuuma and Kotori now, and Astral reaching for the bright orb of light the Numbers had come together to create.

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Astral's fingers brushed the orb of light and with it, his memories came rushing back and something else as well. They weren't all him, that life of his that had been erased to make way for his goal. It was the goal itself, the Numeron Code he'd been bidden to search and collect. His memories had been tied to it, stuck to it like those sticky notes Akari pasted all over her files (and sometimes the couch) but the Numbers weren't his memories at all. Just add-ons.

The Numbers were a part of a large puzzle and he'd barely had a glimpse of it.

None of them had understood at all. Hope, and despair. Luck, and the outcome written in stone. Love, and hate. All of them polar opposites to each other if only they set them out but some of them had been too obscure. They hadn't realised it, even in the context presented to them.

But now he could see it. Halves of wholes all threading together to create a complete tale. The Numeron Code was the tale of the world. They knew that: all its knowledge, its wisdom –

But what they hadn't realised was that it was also its will. And now he could see it. Lines scripted in a neat golden script in his mind. And its first, burning bright and tumbling onto his lips so that he spoke them without pause:

'Now let the will be done…'

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'Now let the will be done…'

Yuuma and Kotori started at that. The spell that bound them was broken and they blinked, brushing away the bright light in their eyes and the confusion in their minds. What will, they wondered. What will be done?

Astal slowly came into focus. Astral, still blue but shining more brightly than Yuuma ever remembered him shining before and they'd known each other so long. 'Astral?' he asked. When the other didn't reply, he repeated it again. 'Astral? Are you okay?'

'What will?' asked Kotori, from behind him.

Astral blinked and stared at the two of them, pulling his hand away. At that moment the glow changed: the Numeron Code shone even more brightly, like a candlelight becoming a torch and calling them, calling Astral – but Astral became the Astral that had always hovered beside Yuuma, or behind him, or in front of him, or even above him while he slept on his hammock… 'The will of the dragon,' he said, and his voice was normal again. Normal… but contemplative, and a little confused. 'The Numeron Code isn't just knowledge. It's will.'

'It… wants something?' Yuuma was still, honestly, confused.

'Or do you mean destiny?' asked Kotori. To her, Yuuma's interpretation sounded far too simplistic. 'They'd written how they wanted the world to go and then someone who didn't want it to go that way broke the Numeron Code.'

Yuuma spun around and stared at her. Stared because what Kotori said made sense and he had to wonder why he hadn't jumped to that possibility straight off himself. Maybe it was because he wanted the freedom to choose, the freedom to go beyond his limits and hadn't he done that? Again and again and again?

'Destiny…' said Astral. 'Yes, that would be a good word for it.

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'Destiny…'

The Numeron Code was supposed to have had the answers they sought, the way to unite the world so the tragedy of the seven emperors didn't happen again, so that Astral World could live forever and accept the chaos instead of burn because of it, so that Yuuma could have his parents back and their friends and all those other people could have their lives back and even the seven Barian emperors could come back and enjoy their lease on life instead of being strung along like pawns.

It was supposed to be their miracle, not the article of their fate.

He'd let go of it but the words were still there, burned into his mind. The image of the world coming into existence: on a stage just like this one, and from it the Astral and Barian worlds had formed as polar opposites, and then from them the secondary worlds like Earth and how many more they weren't even aware of. Those worlds were made up of both light and chaos, light and dark. They had what both Astral and Barian worlds lacked and yet they'd been born from them and they'd all crumble if they went. They'd all fall.

But where was the line, that one line, that could tell them how to change it all? Had he let go too soon or didn't it exist after all?

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They stared at the Numeron Code. It hovered in the sky and glowed golden like the forbidden fruit from Eden's garden and a single taste, a single bite, had told them it wasn't what it promised it was. And now they were left with the question: no what? What did they do? What could they do? All the sacrifices made to achieve the Numeron Code in the hopes of gaining it all back, of protecting everything – and it wasn't capable of doing that at all. It was just the script of their lives, their fate, their destiny…

It was just the book that told them how they'd live and, for all it knew, it told of their inevitable destruction after their long-fought battle, too.

All those people on Earth still hoping. Ena and the people from Astral world. Anyone left behind on Barian world after Don Thousand and the Barian Emperors had gone down. Kaito and Orbital 7 on the moon, if they were still alive even if Mizael had implied otherwise…

'What happens now?' Kotori whispered. Her words seemed so harsh and loud.

Astral said nothing. He only looked towards the Numeron Code.

Yuuma just shook his head. 'We can't even rewrite the Code, if it means taking away the freedom of our future.'

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'…our future.'

Yes, Yuuma had said that earlier too. Even if the Numeron Code could have rewritten the past, he couldn't accept it. Couldn't accept all the effort they'd put in, all the blood and sweat and tears, would be for nothing once they changed it all. The Numeron Code was supposed to change the present and give them their futures, but the past had to be left untouched for it all to have any meaning at all.

But was it a non-issue, now? Could the Numeorn Code actually do anything except trample on possibilities, with its gospel of truth that told the past and the present and the future?

Or maybe it didn't tell the future, after all. He hadn't seen a shred of the future, had he? Pages and pages of the past but the future…

'Astral!' Yuuma cried.

He touched the orb of light again anyway.

 _Show me if you can tell the future._

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Astral had reached for it again: the Numeron Code and for what? What could it give them? Something, hopefully, after all it took to get it but really, what was Astral thinking?

Yuuma half-wished they were still in ZEXAL form so he wasn't left out of the loop. 'Astral,' he repeated. 'Not leaving us out of the loop would be nice, you know.'

'I found it,' said Astral and his voice was once again that strange, slightly echoing one and his body was once again a glowing pillar of light. And then he's reciting: 'I record the past, witness the present and give birth to the future that the ones who have awakened me so wish for.'

'That's not destiny.' Yuuma's brow furrowed at that. That was definitely not destiny. 'A record of the past, an observer of the present – and what's that about the future?'

'It almost sounds like we're free to choose,' said Kotori thoughtfully. 'The Numeron Code… Is it simply an empty box? Like those stories where the protagonist is to deliver a box to someone and spends so much protecting it, but when he finally gets there the box is empty and it's been empty all along?'

'That sucks,' said Yuuma plainly. 'But they got whatever they gained on their journey, and lost whatever they lost.' His lips turned down. 'We just… lost so much, in the end.'

'The end is the present,' Astral said, lowering his hand again. 'I think… we can rewrite the present, with this.'

And the next time he touched the Numeron Code, it was with his entire hand and it swallowed everything except the stage upon which they stood.

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Yuuma and Kotori awoke on the stage. Astral wasn't there but they could see him: a star high up in the sky above. There was nothing but the stage, at first, but then it began to grow. Glowing embers that grew into worlds and then flew away from them.

Astral was remaking the world.

'But… why?' Yuuma asked. Couldn't they have made do with the world they had?

'No,' said Astral, coming down to them. 'The Barian world was infused in everything, and it and the Astral world needed parts of each other to continue on. They all needed balance, so the Astral world wouldn't fade away without the chaos and the Barian world wouldn't drown in it and drown the other worlds it had encroached as well.'

'You're changing the very foundation of the world,' said Kotori, in awe, 'so that the reason Astral and Barian worlds fought no longer exists.'

Astral nodded. 'And when that is done, I can revive the people where they belong as well. The people of this time, at least. The ones who were lost when the worlds began to merge. Of course, they'll remember it all.' He smiled at Yuuma. That was because of him, after all.

'Someone will need to write a book explaining all of this,' Yuuma muttered, shaking his head – before grinning. 'Let's make nee-san do it.'

'Really, Yuuma,' Kotori sighed.

'Come on,' Yuuma protested. 'She'd love the idea. It's an exclusive scoop and we're the only ones with the whole story!'

Astral watched the pair of them bicker and smiled. They didn't know the whole story. Not really. They didn't know all he'd learned when he'd used the Numeron Code. Didn't know that this place wasn't Shark's creation at all but where the world had been born once and now reborn. And they didn't know that he, by using the Numeron Code, had become the architect of the world: it's God.

Don Thousand had done the same, many years ago.

His role now was to ensure he didn't end up like his predecessor.

But with Yuuma being who he was, how could he?


End file.
